Link To 9/11 Hijackers Found In Sarasota

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Sarasota family had 'many connections' to 9/11 terror attacks

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...NEWS?p=1&tc=pg

By Michael Pollick
Published: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 12:31 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 12:31 p.m.

Contrary to previous statements made by the FBI to the news media, a family living in the south Sarasota neighborhood of Prestancia had “many connections” to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to newly released FBI documents.

The family, Anoud and Abdulazziz al-Hijji, had links to 9/11 hijackers — including Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, who trained at a Venice flight school in preparation for the assault on New York and Washington, D.C., that killed 2,996.

Anoud al-Hijji is the daughter of Esam Ghazzawi, a powerful Saudi businessman with long ties to the Saudi royal family. The al-Hijjis have denied any involvement or relationship with the 9/11 hijackers.

But the family abruptly left the Prestancia home that they had lived in for six years roughly a week before the 9/11 attacks, leaving behind clothes, food, children's toys and other living essentials.

In the newly declassified documents, the FBI's Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force reported that the exit was done “quickly and suddenly.” The family left no forwarding address at the time, according to Realtors and property managers who were interviewed by the federal agency.

After being alerted to the family's hasty exit by nearby residents and investigating the circumstances and participants, the FBI said it concluded that the family had no connection to the terrorists.

“At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” Steven E. Ibison, the FBI special agent in charge of the agency's Tampa field office, said in a Sept. 15, 2011, statement made in response to media questioning about the al-Hijjis at that time.

But portions of the FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by BrowardBulldog — a journalism organization led by former Miami Herald reporter Dan Christensen, who has been investigating the attacks — seem to directly contradict those statements.

“Further investigation of the (name deleted) family revealed many connections between the (name deleted) and individuals associated with the terror attacks on 9/11/2001,” a portion of declassified FBI documents state.

The agency redacted many of the names in the 31 pages released under exemptions that protect people's names in law enforcement records. But it is clear who the subjects are because the documents specifically cite the al-Hijjis' residence, which was 4224 Escondito Circle in Sarasota's “Estates at Prestancia” development at the time FBI agents were investigating.

Though the FBI stands by its statements, the documents renew questions — previously raised by former Florida governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and others — that the U.S. has not fully disclosed the extent of its knowledge about links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi officials.

A majority of the terrorists who orchestrated and participated in the attacks were Saudis.

The story of the Prestancia home came to the fore again this week because of a story by BrowardBulldog. Christensen and his organization has been litigating with the federal government in an effort to obtain classified FBI reports that illustrate the relationship between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 terrorists.

Abdulazziz al-Hijji could not be reached for comment, but in email correspondence with The (London) Daily Telegraph a year ago, he strongly denied any involvement in 9/11.

“I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did,” al-Hijji wrote.

Revelations
Among the more explosive revelations in the BrowardBulldog story is that an unidentified “family member” — purportedly of the al-Hijji family — was a flight student at Venice's Huffman Aviation, according to the FBI documents marked “secret” but with the word since crossed through.

Huffman gained notoriety in the wake of 9/11 as the place where suicide hijackers Atta and al-Shehhi learned to fly. Those two men were in the cockpits when jets slammed into the World Trade Center towers.

The story also references documents detailing a third person on a redacted FBI list as having “lived with flight students at Huffman Aviation” and being “arrested numerous times by the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office.”

The BrowardBulldog noted that the recently released FBI documents disclosed nothing about Wissam Hammoud, an al-Hijji friend who is now serving a 21-year prison sentence for weapons violations and for attempting to kill a federal agent.

Hammoud, 47, and an “international terrorist associate,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, told investigators after his 2004 arrest that al-Hijji may have known some of the hijackers and that he considered Osama Bin Laden “a hero.” Though he acknowledged knowing Hammoud well, al-Hijji denied knowing 9/11 participants or revering Bin Laden in an interview with Christensen last year, the BrowardBulldog reported.

Hammoud was arrested in Sarasota County during July 1995 for driving with a suspended license, according to County Clerk of the Court records. He was subsequently given probation and the case was closed.

Questions
Though much about the allegations and evidence connecting the home in Prestancia to the 9/11 attacks is not new, the matter has lingered because of a lack of closure.

Questions remain, too, for Pat Gallagher, who was among the Prestancia residents who contacted the FBI in the aftermath of the terror attacks after “suspicious activity” — the agency's phrase — at the al-Hijji residence at Escondito Circle, including the family's sudden exit.

Though the house has since been sold twice, at the time it was owned by Ghazzawi, an importer and exporter whose circles included the Bin Laden Group.

Ghazzawi's influence also extends to his children. His 42-year-old son, Adel, is a board member of the New York-based think tank EastWest Institute, which counts the likes of Michael Chertoff, a director of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and co-author of the Patriot Act, and retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, among its members.

The younger Ghazzawi operates Conektas, a firm in the United Arab Emirates that helps multinational companies establish businesses in the Middle East.

Abdulazziz al-Hijji was completing undergraduate work at the University of South Florida when he lived in the Ghazzawi house. He went on to receive a bachelor's in computer science.

FBI records indicate that he took a job after graduation with the Saudi oil concern Aramco in London, though he no longer appears to be working there, BrowardBulldog reported.

Interviewed by the FBI, Anoud al-Hijji said the family's flight was a “regularly scheduled departure.”

But the FBI conducted a substantial investigation centered on the al-Hijji household.

Six weeks after 9/11, agents found that Prestancia's digital scan system had picked up at least two license plates registered to Atta and Ziad Jarrah, another 9/11 terrorist, who had allegedly visited the Escondito Circle house in the months leading up to the attacks. The men purportedly identified themselves to security guards.

But the declassified FBI records say the agency “appears not to have obtained the vehicle entry records of the gated community.”

Graham — the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and chairman of the joint congressional inquiry into U.S. intelligence gathering surrounding the terrorist attacks — said he remains convinced that the federal government at several levels has failed to divulge all it knows about 9/11 and its Saudi connections.

He contends that 28 pages of a final report to Congress were censored because they dealt with the Saudi role in 9/11.

Ties
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have had a special and mutually beneficial relationship since 1957, when the Saudi king made a state visit to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

King Saud visited the U.S. with an entourage of at least 60, one of whom appears to have been Esam Ghazzawi's father, Abbas.

At the time, Eisenhower agreed to sell Saudi Arabia up to $500 million worth of weapons in exchange for permission to maintain an airbase in Saudi territory.

The deal did not gel overnight. Abbas Ghazzawi apparently worked on it, after flying into New York from Madrid on Jan. 25, 1957, according to a passenger list kept by U.S. officials. The elder Ghazzawi was accompanied by three other Saudis, including a man who would later serve as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., Faisal al-Hegelan.

The Ghazzawi family's ties to America grew stronger years later when, in 1970, 17-year-old Esam Ghazzawi married American Deborah G. Browning. Their first child, Adel, was born that year on Nov. 19.

The family later established what has been a long presence in Southwest Florida, through the purchase of a pair of bayfront lots on Longboat Key's Putter Lane. Neighbors had little interaction with the man they referred to as “the Arab.”

“That's what we called him,” said former neighbor Betty Blair. “We didn't know his name. All we knew was his kids were in camp so he came for the summer. Two little boys.”

Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi bought the Prestancia home in September 1995, records show.

Five months earlier, Anoud Ghazzawi married al-Hijji. He was 19 and she was 17, their Sarasota County marriage license shows.

While here, they made an effort to blend in, driving popular cars like a Volkswagen Beetle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Chevy Tahoe.

But they did not stay completely under the collective radar. FBI documents reference a dispute with the Prestancia Community Association over unpaid homeowner dues.

The Ghazzawis were frequent visitors to the al-Hijji household, neighbors, acquaintances and an attorney familiar with the case said.

Carla DiBello knew the al-Hijjis and met Esam Ghazzawi on several occasions. “I remember him being very eccentric. He loved going to big dinners and always had a lot of security,” said DiBello, who now lives in Beverly Hills and is in charge of developing business for Kim Kardashian Productions.

As for how Esam Ghazzawi made his living, “all I know about him was that he worked for the King of Saudi from what Anoud told me, but she was always very secretive about what her dad did for them,” DiBello said.

Ghazzawi is still active in business in the Middle East, and sits on the board of the London subsidiary of EIRAD, which makes connections for global firms.

When United Parcel Service wanted to do business in Saudi Arabia, for instance, EIRAD became its handler.

When the al-Hijjis left Southwest Florida for Saudi Arabia “on or about 08/27/2001,” according to the FBI documents, they flew first to Washington, where they met Esam Ghazzawi.

When Ghazzawi left the U.S., Adel Ghazzawi apparently took over the family's affairs here.

It was Adel, then 30 and an American citizen, who tried to get a Prestancia lien lifted so the house could be sold. The lien came after the series of brushes with Prestancia's community association.

“The HOA had great difficulties with them,” said Jone Weist, at that time property manager for much of Prestancia. “It was nothing criminal, but this is not a neighborhood where you let the grass grow for a month.”

Problems mounted when the family departed in 2001, leaving a large mound of garbage at the curb. Eventually, a foreclosure lawsuit was filed.

When not helping his family, Adel Ghazzawi worked with Conektas, a company that “assists multinationals in developing synergistic relationships with credible partners to successfully penetrate and establish solid businesses in the Middle East region.”

“Adel has a vast wealth of business, family and personal relationships within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” his biography reads.

On the EastWest website, Ghazzawi says he has raised more than $1 billion for Middle Eastern projects.

The family ultimately settled the homeowner case and sold the house in September 2003 for $440,000, to Joel Schemmel, records show. Schemmel has since sold the property, according to the county.

Documents
Because Floridians made up his former political constituency and many of the 9/11 terrorists lived in the Sunshine State just prior to the attacks, Graham has made it a personal mission to delve into the connections between the attacks and Saudi Arabia.

Graham, 76, says that neither he, nor his staff, ever received any information regarding the alleged activities in Prestancia from the FBI or other law enforcement.

The FBI contends there is a good reason for that.

“At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” Ibison said in 2011.

Now, despite the documents from their files, the agency is standing by its assessment.

“What Ibison said back then, that is the conclusion, knowing everything we know today,” David Couvertier, an FBI spokesman, said Tuesday. “The Bulldog is getting information that was already taken into consideration.”

But Graham is unswayed.

In an interview Tuesday, Graham said he is “extremely pleased” with the FBI's release of new documents.

“Basically, they said they had conducted an investigation and hadn't found anything,” Graham said. “Now we know that as far back as April of 2002, they had a statement in their files written by a responsible law enforcement official, who I cannot name, saying there were many connections between the hijackers and this family in Sarasota.”

“There are more than those 30-some pages of documents which would indicate that the public statements of the FBI are not accurate,” Graham said.

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Mystery of Sarasota Saudis deepens as Justice moves to end FOI lawsuit citing national security

http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/0...onal-security/

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers, BrowardBulldog.org
June 3, 2013 at 5:59 am

A senior FBI official has told a Fort Lauderdale federal judge that disclosure of certain classified information about Saudis who hurriedly left their Sarasota area home shortly before 9/11 “would reveal current specific targets of the FBI’s national security investigations.”

Records Section Chief David M. Hardy’s assertion is contained in a sworn 33-page declaration filed in support of a Justice Department motion that seeks to end a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed last year by BrowardBulldog.org.

The government’s latest court filings, thick with veiled references to foreign counterintelligence operations and targets, deepen the mystery about a once-secret FBI investigation of Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi and their tenants, son-in-law and daughter, Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji.

The filings by Miami Assistant U.S. Attorney Carole M. Fernandez also seek to justify in the name of national security numerous deletions of information from FBI records about the decade-old investigation that were released recently amid the ongoing litigation.

They do not, however, explain why an investigation the FBI has said found no connection between those Saudis and the Sept. 11th attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people involves information so secret its disclosure “could be expected to cause serious damage to national security.”

The investigation, which the FBI did not disclose to Congress or the 9/11 Commission, was first reported in a September 2011 story published simultaneously by BrowardBulldog.org and The Miami Herald.

It began after neighbors in the gated community of Prestancia reported the al-Hijjis had suddenly departed their home at 4224 Escondito Circle about two weeks before the attacks. They left personal belongings and furniture, including three newly registered cars – one of them brand new.

According to a counterterrorism officer and Prestancia’s former administrator Larry Berberich, gatehouse log books and photographs of license tags were later used by the FBI to determine that vehicles used by the hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.

The FBI later confirmed the existence of the probe, but said it found no evidence connecting the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot.

RECORDS CONTRADICT DENIALS
The newly released FBI records contradict the FBI’s public denials. One dated April 4, 2002 says the investigation “revealed many connections” between the Saudis who fled Sarasota and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The report goes on to list three of those individuals and connect them to the Venice, Florida flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. The names of those individuals were not made public.

The FBI removed additional information in the report, citing a pair of national security exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act.

In his declaration to U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch, the FBI’s Hardy sought to explain those deletions and others. He said information was withheld “to protect an intelligence method utilized by the FBI for gathering intelligence data.” Such methods include confidential informants.

Hardy, who stated that he has been designated a “declassification authority” by Attorney General Eric Holder, said redactions regarding the Sarasota investigation were also made to protect “actual intelligence activities and methods used by the FBI against specific targets of foreign counterintelligence investigations or operations.”

“The information obtained from the intelligence activities or methods is very specific in nature, provided during a specific time period and known to very few individuals,” Hardy said.

DAMAGE TO NATIONAL SECURITY?
No details were provided, but Hardy said the information was “compiled regarding a specific individual or organization of national security interest.” He added that its disclosure “reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.”

Disclosure would reveal the FBI’s “current specific targets” and “allow hostile entities to discover the current intelligence gathering methods used and reveal the criteria and priorities assigned to current intelligence or counterintelligence investigations,” Hardy said.

“With the aid of this detailed information, hostile entities could develop countermeasures which would, in turn, severely disrupt the FBI’s intelligence gathering capabilities” and damage efforts “to detect and apprehend violators of the United States’ national security and criminal laws.”

For months, the FBI claimed it had no responsive documents regarding its Sarasota investigation. But on March 28, Hardy unexpectedly announced the Bureau had located and reviewed 35 pages of records. It released 31 of them.

Prosecutor Fernandez now contends the FBI conducted a “reasonable search” and that “no agency records are being improperly withheld.”

Her motion asks the court to grant summary judgment in the government’s favor.

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Graham: FBI hindered Congress’s 9/11 inquiry, withheld reports about Sarasota Saudis

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/0...congresss.html

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers
BrowardBulldog.org

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has accused the FBI in court papers of having impeded Congress’s Joint Inquiry into 9/11 by withholding information about a Florida connection to the al-Qaeda attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The information, first reported byBrowardBulldog.org in 2011, includes a recently declassified FBI report that ties a Saudi family who once lived in Sarasota “to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

“The FBI’s failure to call (to the Joint Inquiry’s attention) documents finding ‘many connections’ between Saudis living in the United States and individuals associated with the terrorist attack(s)…interfered with the Inquiry’s ability to complete its mission,” said Graham, co-chairman of the Joint Inquiry.

Graham said the FBI kept the 9/11 Commission in the dark, too. He said co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton and executive director Philip Zelikow all told him they were unaware of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation.

Moreover, Graham stated that Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce, the Bureau’s second in command, personally intervened to block him from speaking with the special agent-in-charge of the Sarasota investigation.

“I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the Sept. 11 attacks,” Florida’s former governor said.

Graham’s remarks are contained in a 14-page sworn declaration made in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought byBrowardBulldog.org in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

The suit seeks the records of an FBI investigation into Esam Ghazzawi, a former advisor to a senior Saudi Prince – who had he lived was well placed to become king -Ghazzawi’s wife Deborah and son-in-law and daughter Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji.

The Ghazzawis owned the home at 4224 Escondito Circle in the gated-neighborhood of Prestancia where the al-Hijjis lived until about two weeks before 9/11. Their hurried departure – leaving behind cars, furniture and personal effects – prompted neighbors to call the FBI.

News of the subsequent investigation didn’t surface until September 8, 2011 when its existence was disclosed in a story published simultaneously by BrowardBulldog.org and The Miami Herald.

The story reported that a counterterrorism officer, as well as Prestancia’s former administrator Larry Berberich, said that gatehouse logbooks and photographs of license plates showed that vehicles used by the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home. Analysis of phone records also linked the hijackers to their house, the counterterrorism officer said.

Sen. Graham told reporters in September 2011 that while Congress had relied on the FBI to provide all of its information about 9/11, he had not been made aware of the Sarasota probe.

After the story broke, the FBI acknowledged its investigation but claimed itfound no evidence to connect the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot. Agents maintained, too, that the FBI made all of its 9/11 records available to Congress.

The Freedom of Information lawsuit was filed last September, after the FBI declined to release any records on the matter.

In March, as the case moved toward trial this summer, the Bureau unexpectedly released 31 of 35 pages it said had been located. The partially censored records flatly contradict the FBI’s earlier public comments and state that the Sarasota Saudis had “many connections” to persons allied with the hijackers.

Last month, the Department of Justice asked U.S. District Judge William Zloch to end the lawsuit, citing national security and saying the FBI has identified and released all documents responsive to its Sarasota probe.

But in his declaration, Graham, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said those few pages “do not appear to be the full record of the FBI investigation.” He dismissed the government’s assertion that it lacks further documentation as “entirely implausible.”

“On a matter of this magnitude and significance, my expectation is that the FBI would have hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents,” Graham stated.

As evidence that records continue to be withheld, Graham cited a Sept. 16, 2002 FBI report about Sarasota that he was allowed to see after making inquiries at the FBI. That report should have been released, he said, but was not.

Graham’s declaration, and several by others involved in the case, were filed Friday along with a memorandum by BrowardBulldog.org attorney Thomas Julin asking the judge to deny the government’s request to shut down the lawsuit and to set the case for trial.

Julin is a partner in the Miami law firm of Hunton & Williams.

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9/11 Families Press for Documents on Saudis From Sarasota

http://sarasota.patch.com/articles/9...-from-sarasota

By Linda Hersey

The coalition of families whose loved ones died in the terrorism attacks allege that the al-Hijji family had connections to the hijackers who attended a Venice flight school.

A coalition of families that lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks is urging the FBI to release the full results of an investigation into a Saudi family that formerly resided in Sarasota.

The nonprofit group called "9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism" – comprised of 6,600 people – is alleging that Anoud and Abdulazziz al-Hijji, who lived in the Prestancia Estates in south Sarasota for six years, had ties to the 9/11 hijackers.

The Saudi family abruptly moved away, leaving behind their belognings, a week prior to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But their home was owned by a businessman with connections to the Bin Laden Group, according to the Herald-Tribune.

Now the "9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism" are "seeking information that would shed light on alleged Saudi financing of the terrorist attacks," according to the PR News Wire.

The group is endorsing efforts by the Broward Bulldog, a Florida non-profit corporation, and its founder Dan Christensen, to obtain documents related to the federal investigation into the Sarasota family. The Broward Bulldog was provided with some results of that investigation, but other documents were withheld or portions were deleted.

The Broward Bulldog is suing the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.

The Bulldog has published a series of investigative pieces on the Saudi family and events leading up to the 9/11 attacks. The most recent post – Mystery of Sarasota Saudis deepens as Justice moves to end FOI lawsuit citing national security – alleges that the FBI is withholding documents because "disclosure about Saudis who hurriedly left their Sarasota area home shortly before 9/11 'would reveal current specific targets of the FBI’s national security investigations.' "

The Broward Bulldog reported:

"According to a counterterrorism officer and Prestancia’s former administrator Larry Berberich, gatehouse log books and photographs of license tags were later used by the FBI to determine that vehicles used by the hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.

"The FBI later confirmed the existence of the probe, but said it found no evidence connecting the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot."

On June 5, former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL), who also co-chaired the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, filed a declaration in support of the FOIA request, writing, "I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the September 11 attacks."

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9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism Demand FBI Come Clean About Sarasota Saudis Suspected of 9/11 Ties

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...210471621.html

NEW YORK, June 6, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Steering Committee of the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism endorses the efforts of investigative reporters Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers and calls on the FBI to come clean regarding an investigation involving a Saudi family, former residents of Sarasota, Fla., who may have provided aid to the 9/11 hijackers. Broward Bulldog, Inc., a Florida non-profit corporation, and its founder Dan Christensen filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain documents they were denied and are suing the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.

On June 5, former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL), who also co-chaired the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, filed a declaration in support of the FOIA request, writing, "I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the September 11 attacks."

The 9/11 family members also seek information that would shed light on alleged Saudi financing of the terrorist attacks in their lawsuit, In Re Terrorist Attacks of September 11.

"First President Obama promises me personally to release the 28 pages removed from the congressional committee's report and doesn't, and now the FBI is pulling this stunt," said Bill Doyle, father of Joseph M. Doyle who died in the World Trade Center. "The FBI keeps contradicting itself. On one hand, they say they found no evidence connecting the Sarasota Saudis to 9/11. On the other hand, they say releasing the information would threaten national security. But they can't have it both ways. And the Courts should not let them get away with it."

Read the full statement by the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism, a group comprised of over 6,600 family members of those killed and injured in the attacks of 9/11 that is using the civil legal system to pursue those who financed and provided support for those cowardly terrorist attacks. The case is In Re Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., et al. v. Al Baraka Investment & Development Corp., et al.; In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001. The families are represented by Motley Rice LLC.

SOURCE 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

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9/11 Family Members Demand FBI to Come Clean about Sarasota Saudis Suspected of 9/11 Ties

http://www.justiceagainstterrorism.o...s-releases.php

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Alicia G. Ward
June 6, 2013

(843) 216-9548 office
(843) 532-7011 cell

On Behalf of the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

Former Senator and 9/11 Congressional Investigation Co-Chair Bob Graham, Says the FBI Never Gave Information to Congressional Investigation or 9/11 Commission

The Steering Committee of the 9/11 Families United To Bankrupt Terrorism publicly endorses the efforts of investigative reporters Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers and calls on the FBI to come clean regarding an investigation involving a Saudi family, former residents of Sarasota, Fla., who may have provided aid or assistance to the 9/11 hijackers. Broward Bulldog, Inc., a Florida non-profit corporation, and Dan Christensen, founder, operator and editor of the BrowardBulldog.org website, have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to gain access to documents they have been denied and are suing the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.

On Wednesday, June 5, former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL), who also co-chaired the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into intelligence community activities before and after 9/11, filed a declaration in support of the FOIA request, in which he wrote, “I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the September 11 attacks.”

Graham further declared:

“I have contacted the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton and I have asked them if the 9/11 Commission ever learned of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation. Both advised me that they were unaware of it. Kean told me that if the 9/11 Commission had learned of the Sarasota investigation it would have worked it hard because it seemed implausible that the hijackers had completed the planning of the September 11 attacks alone. Phil Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission’s executive director, also told me that the 9/11 Commission did not receive any documents from the FBI concerning the Sarasota investigation.”

“I also contacted Porter Goss, chairman of the U.S. House of Representative Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002 and co-chair with me of the Joint Inquiry, and Eleanor Hill, staff director of the Joint Inquiry to ask them if he ever had become aware of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation. They said they had no awareness of that investigation.”

Citing the fact that vehicles used by the 9/11 hijackers apparently had visited the home of the Sarasota Saudis as recorded in the gated community’s security logs, and the sudden departure from the U.S. of the Saudi family just before the attacks, the 9/11 family members are also seeking information that would shed light on alleged Saudi financing of the terrorist attacks in their lawsuit, In Re Terrorist Attacks of September 11. However, instead of coming clean, the FBI continues to try to block a request under the Freedom of Information Act in Christensen’s case, claiming it would somehow damage national security. This continues a pattern of obstruction lasting more than a decade, including failure to disclose this information to Congress and to the 9/11 Commission.

“After almost 12 years, the time has come for the Department of Justice, the FBI and this administration to give the American people access to the truth about who financed the murder of 3,000 people on 9/11,” said Sharon Premoli of Dorset, Vt., who was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center and maintains the advocacy website, www.JusticeAgainstTerrorism.net. “It is simply implausible that release of this information would interfere with any current national security investigation. Rather, the FBI’s obstruction creates at least the perception of a cover-up to protect Saudi potentates. We owe Bob Graham a debt of gratitude for his persistence.”

“I wholeheartedly believe these documents will lead us to our ultimate goal of truth, accountability and justice we so desperately seek. This administration owes the families, survivors and those sick and dying from 9/11 the transparency they so passionately talk about. We will never be a safer America if we can’t stop the financial support to the terrorists who continue to plan and plot against us. I applaud Bob Graham for his dedication and action he is taking in exposing the FBI and DOJ's lies and deceit,” said Terry Strada of New Vernon, N.J., widow of Tom Strada, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Graham recently had the opportunity to review certain documents related to the FBI’s Sarasota investigation — documents that had never been provided to the Joint Inquiry.

In his declaration to the Court, Graham wrote that these documents, “contradicted the FBI’s public statements concerning its Sarasota investigation. To me, the documents reflected that the investigation was not a robust inquiry concerning suspicions related to Saudi nationals who resided in Sarasota before September 11, 2001, that an important investigative lead was not pursued, and that unsubstantiated statements were accepted as true.”

“First President Obama promises me personally to release the 28 pages removed from the congressional committee’s report and doesn’t and now the FBI is pulling this stunt,” said Bill Doyle of The Villages, Fla., father of Joseph M. Doyle who died in the World Trade Center. “The FBI keeps contradicting itself. On one hand, they say they found no evidence connecting the Sarasota Saudis to 9/11. On the other hand, they say releasing the information would threaten national security. But they can’t have it both ways. And the Courts should not let them get away with it.”

The 9/11 family members and survivors praised Graham for his leadership in seeking to reveal the truth about alleged Saudi involvement in 9/11, and for his support of their litigation to hold accountable all those who helped finance the murder of their loved ones and injury to countless others.

The original FOIA claim was filed in September 2011 to declassify certain documents regarding a “closed anti-terrorism investigation into the activities of Saudi nationals who lived in and/or owned a residence at 4224 Escondito Circle, near Sarasota, Florida prior to 9/11.” The residents were Abdullazziz Al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud. The homeowners were Anoud AI-Hijji's parents, Essam and Deborah Ghazzawi. The FBI investigation began in the fall of 2001 and continued into at least 2003.

The 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

This group is comprised of over 6,600 family members of those killed and injured in the attacks of 9/11. They are united in the cause of pursuing justice and deterring future terrorist attacks. To do so, they are using the civil legal system to pursue those who financed and provided support for those cowardly terrorist attacks. The case is In Re Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., et al. v. Al Baraka Investment & Development Corp., et al., Case No. 03-CV-9849 (GBD); In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, 03 MDL 1570. The families are represented by complex civil litigation firm Motley Rice LLC.

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9/11 family members demand the FBI ‘come clean’ about Sarasota Saudis

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/0...emand-the.html

By Dan Christensen
BrowardBulldog.org

A group representing 6,600 survivors and relatives of those killed and injured in the 9/11 attacks has called on the FBI to “come clean” about its investigation of Saudis in Florida who may have aided the terrorist hijackers.

The reaction by 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism on Thursday followed news that former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham had accused the FBI in court papers of concealing the existence of its Sarasota investigation and impeding Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“After almost 12 years, the time has come for the Department of Justice, the FBI and this administration to give the American people access to the truth about who financed the murder of 3,000 people on 9/11,” said Sharon Premoli, who was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Graham, co-chairman of the congressional probe, discussed the FBI’s performance in a sworn declaration given in support of a Freedom of Information lawsuit pending in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

BrowardBulldog.org filed the suit last summer while seeking FBI records of its investigation of Esam Ghazzawi, a former advisor to a senior Saudi prince — who, had he lived, was well placed to become king — Ghazzawi’s wife, Deborah, and son-in-law and daughter, Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji.

The Ghazzawis owned the upscale home at 4224 Escondito Circle where the al-Hijjis lived until about two weeks before 9/11. Neighbors called the FBI after the family’s hurried departure — leaving behind cars, furniture and other possessions.

Sources have said that security records — including photos of license plates — from the gated community where the al-Hijjis lived later revealed that vehicles used by the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.

The FBI, however, has publicly denied finding any evidence linking the family to 9/11.

Yet 31 pages of FBI documents released to BrowardBulldog.org in March say something very different: that the Sarasota Saudis had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The Justice Department recently asked U.S. District Judge William Zloch to end the lawsuit, citing national security and declaring that it has no more documents to produce.

Bill Doyle, who lives in The Villages, lost his son Joseph in the attacks.

“The FBI keeps contradicting itself,” Doyle said in a statement released by the group on Thursday. “But they can’t have it both ways. And the courts should not let them get away with it.”

Survivor Premoli is a Vermont resident who maintains the advocacy websitewww.JusticeAgainstTerrorism.net. “It is simply implausible that release of this information would interfere with any current national security investigation,” she said. “Rather, the FBI’s obstruction creates at least the perception of a cover-up to protect Saudi potentates.”

Terry Strada, a Mount Vernon, N.J., resident whose husband Tom died in the World Trade Center, said through the group that she believes the Sarasota “documents will lead us to our ultimate goal of truth, accountability and justice we so desperately seek.”

Since 2002, the 9/11 Families group has been suing an array of individuals, banks, corporations and Islamic charities that the group’s lawyers have said were “historically implicated in the sponsoring of al-Qaeda’s terrorist activities.”

The suit, pending in federal court in New York, seeks more than $1 trillion in damages.

Broward Bulldog is a not-for-profit online only newspaper created to provide local reporting in the public interest. www.browardbulldog.org 954-603-1351

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Post 9/11: Questions for Obama

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/1...for-obama.html

BY BOB GRAHAM
Bob.graham@grahamcos.com

In the swirl of revelations, contradictions and confusion about the United States data mining program, Mr. President, you have called for a national debate on liberty and security in post 9/11 America.

I welcome this call, but the difficulties with your proposal include: how to have a debate on a subject you don’t know exists; and how to have a debate if the facts necessary to engage in an informed discussion are withheld?

As reported over many months in the U.S. and abroad — notably in the Miami Herald and BrowardBulldog.com — a 9/11 series of events that go to the heart of the issue of how to ensure that security is compatible with liberty have arisen from Sarasota.

At the core of this episode is a central, lingering question. Saddled with linguistic and cultural ignorance and limited personal experience, could the 19 hijackers have conducted such a complex operation alone? The co-chair of the 9/11 commission said it was “implausible.” Did the terrorists have the support of a network, perhaps directed by elements of a foreign nation state?

The events in Sarasota are directly relevant to those questions. Prior to 9/11, according to law enforcement investigators, neighbors and other witnesses, a prominent Saudi family living in Sarasota had extensive contacts with several of the future hijackers — including key operatives training to be pilots at a nearby flight school. About 10 days before 9/11, apparently in great haste, these Saudis left their Sarasota home and — accompanied by the occupant’s father-in-law who had long been an aide to a senior Saudi prince — returned to Saudi Arabia.

When these allegations were disclosed 10 years later, the FBI stated publicly that a thorough investigation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 revealed no connections between the family and the hijackers. And further, that all of the information derived from the investigation had been made available to the 9/11 commission and the joint congressional inquiry.

Recently released primary source documentation (uncovered through a Freedom of Information request) based on evidence collected by law enforcement agents who participated in the investigation disclosed there had been “many connections between the (name of family redacted) and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . . .” The leadership of the 9/11 commission and the congressional joint inquiry have affirmed they were unaware of the pre-9/11 events or the subsequent investigation.

Neither of the FBI’s public assertions appears to be correct. The FBI has declared all the remaining documentation of the Sarasota events and subsequent investigation classified.

How is the public supposed to know or evaluate the truth of the matter?

One way to start would be to open the debate with questions that would illuminate the context of specific actions — such as the recently disclosed National Security Agency’s Prism program — but would not necessitate access to classified information.

For example:

Under what circumstances is it acceptable for the government to withhold information from — even deceive — the public?

In the summer of 1943, after the Tehran conference attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Churchill said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Churchill’s statement was justified at that time — decisions on the final battle plans of World War II were made at Tehran.

Some would say we have been in a continuous time of war since 9/11. Let’s have a debate as to whether and to what the Churchillian dictum applies today.

• What should be done if it is determined that a governmental agency has deceived the American people and then withheld the evidence of its incompetence or perfidy by the shield of classification? We need a public conversation as to whether it would be salutary to insert provisions in the Freedom of Information Act or elsewhere to sanction an agency which has engaged in this practice.

• Why have the Saudis been treated in a distinctively different manner than other nationalities? This stark difference was highlighted after the Boston marathon bombing in April.

Within hours of the massacre, the FBI was aggressively investigating whether the two Muslim Russian Chechen bombers had acted with the connivance of Muslims from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region. Yet, more than 10 years after 9/11 it appears everything possible is being done to conceal Saudi assistance to the 19 hijackers — 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

• Should the FBI continue to be the domestic intelligence agency for the United States? MI 5 in the United Kingdom and Shin Bet in Israel are stand alone, non-law enforcement related domestic intelligence agencies. One rationale for this separation is difference of mission. Law enforcement agencies are primarily directed to gather sufficient evidence after a crime has been committed to convict the perpetrator beyond a reasonable doubt. Domestic intelligence is structured to gather information to detect a peril and avoid it.

• Has the performance of the FBI been such as to convince Americans we are best protected by an agency that combines these goals?

Mr. President, those are some of the questions that concern Americans. We recall President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s call to duty in his 1961 farewell address:

“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” Today the situation is different. But, the challenge to properly mesh security concerns with the protection of our liberties continues.

Let the debate begin.

Bob Graham served for 18 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as governor of Florida. He was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (2001-2003) and co-chair of the congressional joint inquiry into the role of the intelligence community in 9/11. He is the author of the novel “Keys to the Kingdom.”

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Censored, Withheld Records: Sarasota, Saudis and 9/11

http://www.theledger.com/article/201...1036?p=1&tc=pg

Published: Friday, September 13, 2013 at 12:07 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, September 13, 2013 at 12:07 a.m.

The reported links between the 9/11 terrorists and a Saudi Arabian family that lived in Sarasota are slowly coming into focus, despite the FBI's tenacious efforts to conceal them.

A Sarasota Herald-Tribune story Wednesday — the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks — reported that recently obtained FBI documents appear to confirm "many connections" between the family and the 9/11 hijackers who received flight training in Venice.

More could be revealed if a federal lawsuit filed against the FBI by a South Florida online newspaper is successful. The lawsuit seeks additional documents and agents' field notes related to their investigation of the family.

Among those interested is Bob Graham, the former Florida governor and U.S. senator who co-chaired a congressional panel that investigated the 9/11 attacks. Graham has filed a statement with the court in support of the lawsuit.

Tuesday, Halifax Media Holdings, the owner of the Herald-Tribune and The Ledger, asked the federal judge for the lawsuit for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the plaintiffs.

These are the latest developments in a mystery that came to light two years ago when the Sarasota-Saudi-9/11 links were first reported in the online publication, the Broward Bulldog, as well as the Herald-Tribune and other Florida newspapers.

The public deserves a true accounting.

UNTOLD STORY
Twelve years after the 9/11 attacks one of the few untold stories is: Who financed and supported the attacks?

The question is crucial, Graham said. He told the Broward Bulldog that the final 28-page section of the inquiry's 2003 report, dealing with "sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers," was censored by order of then-President George W. Bush. It is still being withheld from the public.

Graham said he believes that the information was concealed to provide "protection of the Saudis from embarrassment, protection of the administration from political embarrassment ... some of the unknowns, some of the secrets of 9/11."

The Saudi connections to the terrorist attacks are well-established. Most of the hijackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida, who claimed responsibility for the attacks, was the member of a wealthy Saudi family.

Whether the Saudi family in Sarasota had any role leading up to the attacks is unknown. The FBI investigation of the family was not reported to Congress or mentioned in the independent 9/11 Commission report.

What is known is that the family, closely related to a prominent Saudi financier, abruptly abandoned their home an subdivision two weeks before 9/11. They left behind clothes in the closets, food in the refrigerator, and three cars in the driveway and garage.

NEW INFORMATION
The 2011 story by the Broward Bulldog, reprinted by the Herald-Tribune, said phone records and subdivision gate records obtained by the FBI linked the family to the 9/11 hijackers training 15 miles away at the Venice airport.

The FBI confirmed that it had investigated the family but said the case was "determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot."

Yet, as the Herald-Tribune reported, the FBI this spring mailed Broward Bulldog editor Dan Christensen 31 pages of heavily redacted documents that state, in part: "Further investigation of the [name deleted] family revealed many connections between the [name deleted] and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 09/11/2001."

Pollick noted that it's clear who the subjects are because the documents specifically cite the Saudi family's home in Prestancia.

Even if the FBI has been truthful and none of information it obtained links the Saudi family to the 9/11 attacks, why not make their records public?

"The question is," Graham told Pollick, "why are they doing this? What interest does the FBI have in denying the existence of its own documents?"

"Beyond that, they have thrown a blanket of national security over virtually everything, and why are they doing that for an event that occurred ... 12 years ago?"

Those are good questions. The federal court should find that the public deserves answers and a full accounting of the Saudi family's apparent connection to the perpetrators of 9/11.

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Graham: FBI held back Fla. 9/11 links
The former Florida senator accused the FBI in court papers of failing to give Congress details about a Saudi family in Sarasota and its possible connection to the attacks.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/2...911-links.html

By Dan Christensen and Anthony Summers

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has accused the FBI in court papers of having impeded Congress' Joint Inquiry into 9/11 by withholding information about a Florida connection to the al-Qaida attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

The information, first reported by BrowardBulldog.org in 2011, includes a recently declassified FBI report that ties a Saudi family who once lived in Sarasota "to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001."

"The FBI's failure to call [to the Joint Inquiry's attention] documents finding 'many connections' between Saudis living in the United States and individuals associated with the terrorist attack[s] . . . interfered with the Inquiry's ability to complete its mission, " said Graham, who was co-chairman of the Joint Inquiry.

Graham said the FBI kept the 9/11 Commission in the dark, too. He said co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton and executive director Philip Zelikow all told him they were unaware of the FBI's Sarasota investigation.

Moreover, Graham stated that Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce, the Bureau's second-in-command, personally intervened to block him from speaking with the special agent-in-charge of the Sarasota investigation.

"I am troubled by what appears to me to be a persistent effort by the FBI to conceal from the American people information concerning possible Saudi support of the Sept. 11 attacks, " said Graham, who is also a former Florida governor.

Graham's remarks are contained in a 14-page sworn declaration made in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by BrowardBulldog.org in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

The suit seeks the records of an FBI investigation into Esam Ghazzawi, a former adviser to a senior Saudi Prince - who, had he lived, was well-placed to become king - as well as Ghazzawi's wife Deborah and son-in-law and daughter Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji.

The Ghazzawis owned the home in the gated-neighborhood of Prestancia, where the al-Hijjis lived until about two weeks before 9/11. Their hurried departure - leaving behind cars, furniture and personal effects - prompted neighbors to call the FBI.

News of the subsequent investigation did not surface until Sept. 8, 2011, when its existence was disclosed in a story published simultaneously by BrowardBulldog.org and The Miami Herald.

The story reported that a counterterrorism officer, as well as Prestancia's former administrator, Larry Berberich, said that gatehouse logs and photographs of license plates showed that vehicles used by the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home. Analysis of telephone records also linked the hijackers to their house, the counterterrorism officer said.

Graham told reporters in September 2011 that while Congress had relied on the FBI to provide all of its information about 9/11, he had not been made aware of the Sarasota probe.

After the story broke, the FBI acknowledged its investigation but claimed it found no evidence to connect the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot. Agents maintained, too, that the FBI made all of its 9/11 records available to Congress.

The Freedom of Information lawsuit was filed last September, after the FBI declined to release any records on the matter.

In March, as the case moved toward trial this summer, the Bureau unexpectedly released 31 of 35 pages that it said had been located. The partially censored records flatly contradict the FBI's earlier public comments, and state that the Sarasota Saudis had "many connections" to persons allied with the hijackers.

Last month, the Department of Justice asked U.S. District Judge William Zloch to quash the lawsuit, citing national security and saying the FBI had identified and released all documents responsive to its Sarasota probe.

But in his declaration, Graham, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said those few pages "do not appear to be the full record of the FBI investigation." He dismissed the government's assertion that it lacks further documentation as "entirely implausible."

"On a matter of this magnitude and significance, my expectation is that the FBI would have hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents, " Graham stated.

As evidence that records continue to be withheld, Graham cited a Sept. 16, 2002, FBI report about Sarasota that he was allowed to see after making inquiries at the FBI. That report should have been released, he said, but was not.

Graham's declaration, and several by others involved in the case, were filed Friday along with a memorandum by BrowardBulldog.org attorney Thomas Julin asking the judge to deny the government's request to shut down the lawsuit and to schedule the case for trial.

Julin is a partner in the Miami law firm of Hunton & Williams.